Buy it... if you've appreciated the massively harmonic snippets
from James Newton Howard's scores of the prior ten years but seek such
ambitious symphonic performances over the length of an entire
soundtrack.

Avoid it... if you need thematic transparency as mesmerizing as
Howard's classic Lady in the Water, because The Last
Airbender impresses you with harmonic expressiveness and instrumental
technicalities rather than instantly obvious identities.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #471

WRITTEN
6/3/10

BUY IT

(9.99)

Howard

The Last Airbender: (James Newton Howard) An
acclaimed hit for the Nickelodeon television channel from 2005 to 2008,
"Avatar: The Last Airbender" brought Asian mythology and martial arts
combat to audiences of children. It told of an age of fantasy when the
basic elements of the planet (Earth, Water, Fire, and Air) could be
controlled by individuals, with one "Avatar" maintaining the ability to
handle all four. This de facto leader is responsible for bringing the
peoples of the world together, and in the absence of one for a long
time, war has erupted between the "Benders" capable of manipulating just
one of the elements. The Fire Nation has sought to dominate, and the
fate of the planet rests on the one known Airbender to remain. This
112-year-old boy (ah, the joys of perpetual pre-pubescence!) is in fact
the next Avatar, and in the first season of the show, he learns his
craft and teams with friends from the Water Tribes to kick off a
confrontation that eventually incorporates the Earth Kingdom in
subsequent seasons. Nickelodeon and Paramount gave over $100 million to
M. Night Shyamalan to write, produce, and direct an adaptation of the
show into the first of three feature films, each to address the events
of the concept's three season-defining "books." The translation of the
cartoon into live action didn't come without some controversy, however,
as the Asian screen identities of the characters on TV were adapted into
a primarily white cast for the film, drawing significant criticism. Also
to contend with was James Cameron's monolithic Avatar, which in
early 2010 forced the production to reduce its name to the subtitle,
The Last Airbender. A comprehensive advertising campaign for
Shyamalan's film included trailers with original score recordings by
James Newton Howard to utilize musical ideas already developed. The
Last Airbender represents the seventh collaboration between the
composer and director over the last decade or so, and the film music
community was pleased to learn in 2008 of the composer's involvement in
this promising franchise. Enthusiasts of the show, however, were not as
forgiving of this obvious choice; the music for the television series
was provided by Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn under the name The
Track Team, and their work had established an exotic sound through the
employment of various worldly instruments. Howard was not expected to
adapt their themes from the show into the film, much to the
disgruntlement of those fans, but the resulting score may change their
minds.

The Howard scores for Shyamalan's films have yielded some
forgettable music and a few gems. Both The Village and Lady in
the Water are highly regarded, the latter considered by many to be
the best score of 2006. These efforts prove that the memorable qualities
of his music for these collaborations depend upon how much fantasy
Howard can address when attempting to capture the emotional core of a
film (as he has expressed as his primary duty in the past). Some
assignments offer him more of a dynamic canvas on which to create the
kind of flowing orchestral and choral fantasy heard initially in full
during his stint as the primary Disney composer in the late 1990's and
early 2000's. Pieces of this kind of grandiose material were evident in
projects like The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep and I Am
Legend, but only in Lady in the Water did he really have a
chance to develop such lyrical "magic" in nearly every measure of a
score. Finally, The Last Airbender has afforded him the chance to
lather on the harmonic grandeur once again, albeit at volumes far
greater than in the 2006 favorite. The scope of this score is monumental
to say the least, utilizing the blunt force of an orchestra while
layering its extremely balanced ranks with choral accents and specialty
instruments. The choir and soloists effective convey the mystical
fantasy realm, though the choir is not as omnipresent as it is in
Lady in the Water; instead, it only occasionally lends depth to
moments of awe (especially later on the album release) and is more
inclined to chant violently for the sequences of confrontation. The
regional flavor comes from Eastern woodwinds (an erhu seemed like a
logical choice) and the hazy tones of glass percussion fog up the
atmosphere much like the portions of Lady in the Water that
managed not to find their way onto the commercial release of that score.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the instrumental assignments to
The Last Airbender involves the idea of using the four sections
of the orchestra to individually represent the four natural elements.
For instance, such a setup would primarily use woodwinds for the Air,
strings for the Water, percussion for the Earth, and brass for Fire.
While Howard does seem to lean in that direction in regards to applying
the ethnic woodwinds for the primary character, the Airbender, and a
rolling, descending string figure as the rhythmic backdrop for some of
the water-related scenes, those choices don't offer overarching evidence
to suggest the total coordination of orchestral and natural
sections.

The spread of duties across all of the elements of the
ensemble in The Last Airbender is truly the best achievement by
Howard for the film. From the rolling bassoons in the bass to occasional
violin solos a la The Village in the treble, the score is
expertly orchestrated. The percussion section is especially noteworthy,
with medium and upper range tones contributing significantly to the
score. With taiko-like banging stereotypically rumbling underneath,
Howard presents lighter, struck tones in the middle of the sonic range
to create impressive depth within the ensemble. The snare also achieves
that effect, letting rip several times for the scenes of adversity.
Anyone with a strong collection of Howard's scores will recognize his
ability to establish dynamic percussive rhythms that highlight those
works, and many such passages exist in The Last Airbender. The
ethnic woodwinds waft through the soundscape as well, often anchoring
the treble with distant meandering. The glassy effects, which date back
to Waterworld for Howard, are perhaps the least interesting of
the contributors (despite appropriate). Still, the overall strength of
The Last Airbender is owed to the harmonic expression of ensemble
ruckus; there are practically no boring or obnoxious moments in this
score, dissonance and minimalism scarcely employed. Every moment,
whether tethered to a recognizable theme or not, presents its own
glorious harmonic pleasure, much as John Powell's recent How to Train
Your Dragon achieved. Like that earlier 2010 score, however, The
Last Airbender is another powerhouse defined by the combination of
its thematic structures rather than any one or two really dominant
ideas. Listeners expecting to hear a massive, immediately identifiable
theme in The Last Airbender will be left scratching their heads
upon the first casual appreciation of the score. Regardless of the
agreement between Howard and Shyamalan to employ a score that can be
instantly recognized from just a few notes, Howard's music here doesn't
quite achieve that goal. There are indeed three substantial themes in
the score, two of which quite epic in their development, but nothing in
The Last Airbender will strike you as a potential pop culture
favorite. Most interestingly, neither of the two primary themes is
featured prominently in what the album presents as "Airbender Suite," a
lengthy collection of general harmonic ideas related to the score but
only connecting with the rest of the score's third theme (for the
militaristic side of the story).

In fact, in terms of the thematic assignments in The
Last Airbender, the "Airbender Suite" centers around an overtly
noble theme that extends for several minutes in development from the
two-minute mark but does not figure into the mass of the rest of the
score. With a merging of John Barry melodrama, Jerry Goldsmith nobility,
and John Williams scope, this theme creates an impression but is
unfortunately orphaned in such a curious way that makes one wonder if it
isn't meant to address the sequel films rather than this one. The three
actual themes from Howard include the heroic brass fanfare consisting of
a series of rising pairs of notes, a flowing, romantically-inclined
theme of majestic beauty aimed at the strings, and rip-snorting
militaristic march for war that contains its own menacing interlude for
separate usage. The simple fanfare-like theme for brass is the most
frequently referenced identity in The Last Airbender, easily
adapted into a number of different scenarios that all seem to address
the adventure of the story. The progressions of this theme will remind
film score collectors of both Barry's Zulu and Goldsmith's The
Ghost and the Darkness (via Dinosaur), and especially the
former. This main theme is conveyed at the start of the film (on strings
at 1:00 into "Prologue"), but that cue is withheld until the middle of
the CD album. It is heard from restrained brass and then percussive
blasts at 1:20 into "Earthbenders," within resilient propulsion at 3:45
in "The Four Elements Test," and in full for massive brass from 0:45 to
2:30 in "Journey to the Northern Water Tribe" (the latter a brief
reprise). The theme finally earns its role as the score's definitive
identity in "Flow Like Water," in which it serves as grand counterpoint
to flowing secondary theme's rhythms with the entire ensemble at 3:45
and then punctuates the music heard in Howard's original trailer cue at
the 6-minute mark. The other major theme in The Last Airbender is
most likely tied to the primary character's destiny as Avatar, supported
here in a foreshadowing role outside of its major performances in "Hall
of Avatars" (vague at first, then in full at 1:30) and with majesty in
the first minutes of "Flow Like Water." This theme's rhythmic foundation
indeed flows like water in descending patterns for the strings, always
starting with the cellos and working up through the section. This mainly
cello rhythm is also heard at the start of "Earthbenders," two minutes
into "Journey to the Northern Water Tribe," and accompanied faintly by
its theme at 1:20 into "The Spirit World." A spin-off of this idea's
general mood forms its own singular theme of incredible beauty in the
last two minutes of "We Are Now the Gods."

The darker, more militaristic theme of The Last
Airbender is split into two parts, an almost pompous fanfare march
and a more ominously pounded, staccato interlude that sometimes moves
off on its own. The two are introduced on album in succession in
"Airbender Suite," starting at 7:20, when the fanfare is accented by
tapped snare rhythms and broad lower brass notes. Just after the
8-minute mark, the interlude sequence takes charge with overpowering
choral chants and a rising series of notes perhaps meant to represent
fire. This rhythm sometimes utilizes six notes, the first and last two
on key, though it is sometimes shortened to four notes, removing the
repeating ones. The percussive barrage following that segment of the
suite is not to be missed. The two are adjoined again in "The Blue
Spirit," the march in full at 2:00 and then the rhythmic figure and
rising structures extremely forceful at 3:45. The most interesting
version of these ideas comes at the start of "We Could Be Friends," the
shortened rhythmic figure underpinning the fanfare's most muscular
performance of elongated brass layers and snare. Separately, the fanfare
is briefly referenced at 1:45 in "We Are Now the Gods" and the rhythm is
alluded to at 2:00 (great bassoons in this passage) and once again
followed by a multitude of percussive tapping. There are other fragments
of thematic ideas that Howard utilizes once and then abandons (led by,
as mentioned before, the impressive themes at the start of "Airbender
Suite" and end of "We Are Now the Gods"), and perhaps some of these will
become clearer if the franchise progresses forward as planned with
Howard in tow. Overall, The Last Airbender is consistently
entertaining in its lyrical expressiveness and instrumental
technicalities. Howard uses familiar techniques without ever resorting
to cliches, which is a refreshing ability. The mix of the various
recorded elements is among the best in recent memory, too. It's not a
transparent score, however, demanding closer attention to really
appreciate the development of Howard's themes. In this regard, the album
may not woo mainstream viewers of the film like the two very clearly
delineated themes of The Lady in the Water did. Also lacking is
the same sense of a narrative flow, an aspect shattered by a
non-chronological presentation of tracks on the commercial album for
The Last Airbender. But, on the whole, this score extends the
highlights of Howard's late 2000's fantasy scores to a length of over an
hour, and it is clearly the most impressive work from the composer since
The Lady in the Water. There seems to be no shortage of
outstanding film scores to come from the industry in 2010, easily the
best year for this genre of music in a long time. *****@Amazon.com: CD or
Download

Bias Check:

For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.39
(in 59 reviews)and the average viewer rating is 3.21
(in 70,029 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.